Oconto
County WIGenWeb ProjectCollected
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MEN of EARLY OCONTO COUNTY

Descendents of: Hiram
and Angeline Ames (Lowell)Farmers near Pensaukee in the
early 1860's

Oconto County,
Wisconsin, served as the home for many pioneers fueling
the western expansion of the United States. Hiram Ames, his wife the
former
Angeline Rider, and their daughter Georgianna, arrived from Maine in
the
late 1850's and started farming near Pensaukee. Three more daughters
were
born to this union before Hiram answered the sound of the drums of the
Civil War.

Leaving his family
behind, at the age of 32, this 5 foot 9 inch,
blue eyed, ruddy completed, farmer jointed the "Oconto County River
Sackers,"
Company F, 12th Infantry Regiment of the Army of the Northern Republic.
Waiting until after celebrating Christmas with his family in 1863, he
enlisted
for three years on December 29, 1863 and took his first military
training
in Madison, Wisconsin.

Not long after
enlisting, Hiram Ames, joined other members of Wisconsin's
12th Infantry Regiment at Vicksburg, Mississippi, until they moved to
Clifton,
Tennessee, from May 5 to May 14, 1864. Then as part of the northern
Army
of the Tennessee, led by General William Tecumseh Sherman, Private
Hiram
Ames, marched from May 14th to June 8th to Ackworth, Georgia, via
Huntsville
and Decatur, Alabama, and Rome, Georgia. After participating in several
battles in northern Georgia, Private Ames, participated in the Battle
of
Atlanta, before heading to northwest Georgia and Northeast Alabama to
stop
elements of the southern Army of the Tennessee, led by General John
Bell
Hood, from harassing Union supply and communications lines.

Official
government records claim Private Ames died of infection
of the Bowls either October 17th or 18th, 1864. An eyewitness account
filed
on February 28, 1867, by Lieutenant Frederick J. Bartels, also of
Company
F, 12th Wisconsin Infantry, said, "Hiram Ames died near Snake Gap,
Alabama,
while on the March between Altoona and Snake Gap," and was buried in a
field.

ASIDE
Bob
Mandler: While I
was born in South Dakota
I'm currently retired in the South. Much to my surprise, while
researching
my family I found this eyewitness account of Hiram Ames's death. He
died
only a few miles from where I live. I retied after 20 years service in
the US Marine Corps and I worked another 20 years as an Air Force
historian.

Below
is biographical data on individual family
members gleaned from documents from the University of Wisconsin at
Green
Bay, and from documents retained by the National

Acknowledgements:
Fulwider Campbell.The
genealogy takes the family until 1982. The spellings and style are
taken
from the original source documents.Thanks to the research and documents
completed
by "Billie" and my mother, Delia J.
Mandler (Berg), with
the aid of a computer and the Internet I was able to take my research
one
step beyond where they had gone. These two women left us a golden trail
to our ancestors. If those two ladies had access to the Internet there
is no telling what additional knowledge we would have of our families.

HIRAM AMES

Private Hiram
Ames, died while serving with Company "F", Twelfth
Infantry Regiment (Wisconsin) of the Army of the Northern Republic
(Union)
during the Civil War. The unit was also known as the "Oconto County
River
Sackers."

Remarks: Died Oct
17, 64 of disease (see above). One document says
he was, "A good and faithful soldier." Hiram Ames is shown in an 1840
census
in Franklin County, Maine.

ANGELINE RIDER AMES LOWELL

The following is
from theCivil War Widows'
Pension Records found at the National Archives.

Hiram Ames and
Angeline Rider (or Ryder) married on February 4, 1855
(or 1854) at Bucksport, Hancock County (or Bangor, Penobscot County,
Maine.)
Parenthetical information is taken from documents filed by an attorney
for additional pension claims in the 1900's and might not be reliable.

Hiram Ames's
widow, Angeline, and four daughters, survived him. Georgia
Anna Ames, (my great-grandmother) was born on April 23, 1855 in Bangor,
Maine. The other three sisters were listed as being born in Abrams,
Wisconsin:
Nancy B. Ames, April 18 1860; Flora Ela Ames, August 18, 1861; and Lula
M. Ames, July 24, 1862.

Angeline was born
on June 1, 1840 (1839 in the 1880 census) in Bucksport,
Maine. She died on September 11, 1927 in Abrams, Wisconsin. Her mother
is listed as Nancy Rider and her father is listed as Nathaniel Rider on
her marriage record to Abram C. Lowell on September 3, 1865. The 1880
census
shows both of her parents were born in Maine. At the time of her death,
Angeline was receiving $50 per month pension for being a Civil War
veteran's
widow.

Angeline married
Abram C. Lowell (Abraham Chase Lowell) on September
3, 1865. A. C. Lowell served with a Wisconsin cavalry unit during the
Civil
War and was disabled during a battle north of New Orleans. Following
their
marriage, A. C. Lowell filed as guardian of the four daughters of Hiram
Ames.

Since their
father, Hiram Ames, died during the Civil War the U.S.
Government paid A. C. Lowell $2 per month as guardian to care for each
girl until they reached their 16th birthday. At the time of his death
on
February 18, 1913, A. C. Lowell received a $25 monthly Civil War
disability
pension.

Censuses show
Angeline and A. C. Lowell had several children from
their union. A Wisconsin 1870 Censes shows Ada Lowell age 2, born in
Wisconsin
and Abba (Anna?) Lowell born April 1870 in Wisconsin. An 1880 Censes
shows
a daughter Roselthy Lowell age 10 has been added and they have adopted
a son named Henry Tooli age 7 (another Pensaukee surname) whose birth
father
was born in Ireland and birth mother was born in Canada.

Angelina Lowell is
listed in the 1920 Federal Census living in Abrams
Township, Oconto County. She is widowed head of household and married
daughter
Anna Nutt is the only person listed living with her. The 1860 Federal
Census
shows the Ames family in Pensaukee lived next door to the Nutt family.
Their daughter, Anna, had the married surname of Nutt.
(I'm not sure which daughter used the name Anna.)

ASIDE
Bob
Mandler:
"Billie" wrote that Angeline was
an immigrant from Ireland (In the first pages Georgianan). Also, I have
not been able to find documentation showing any relationship to
Ireland.
The census report shows that Angeline's parents were born in Maine.
However,
Angeline did not record the location of her birth on the marriage
certificate
to A. C. Lowell. One document indicates there is a marriage certificate
on file for Angeline and Hiram Ames in a county court house in Maine.

GEORGIE ANNA (GEORGIANNA) SIGNOR-SCHWARTZ
(AMES)

Georgianna was
first married to Ed Signor in 1871. They divorced
(according
to my mother's notes) and her second marriage was
to William
Schwartz. This information is from the Pre 1907 Wisconsin Marriage
Index
- Oconto County WI (this
is the state not the
county record).

Date of registration: November 27th 1883 The color: White Full name of husband: William
Schwartz Full name of wife previous to
marriage: Georgie
Anna Ames Occupation of said husband:
Farmer Residence of said husband:
Pensaukee, Oconto
County Birthplace of said husband: Germany The place, town or township,
and county where
the marriage was contracted: Pensaukee, Oconto Co Wis Time when the marriage was
contracted: November
3d, 1883 By what ceremony contracted:
Civil Name of person pronouncing
marriage: D. E. Whiting Residence of person last named:
Oconto, Oconto
Co Wis

Names of subscribing witnesses: A. C. Lowell,
Emma Schwartz Date of certificate of
Marriage: Nov 3d 1883 Name of the father of said
husband: Charles Schwartz Name of the mother of said
husband: Frinnie R.
Schwartz Name of the father of said
wife: Hiram Ames Name of the mother of said
wife: Angeline Ames

The following
information is listed online. Following the name is
the date,vol., page, vol. and sequence # in which the above record can
be found at the University of Wisconsin. The Signor marriage is also
listed.

NOTE
Bob
Mandler: The
marriage took place in 1883,
not 1884 as it appears in some family documents.

Georgianna died at
the age of 78 on Friday February 2, 1934. She
is buried in the Protestant Cemetery in Ramona, South Dakota, and
shares
a common footstone with William Schwartz. Her obituary says she was
born
April 23, 1855, in Maine (Ramona
newspaper dated
Feb 8, 1934). Her obituary in The Madison (South
Dakota) Leader (no
date)
said she "moved to Abrams, Wis. as a young girl." At the time of her
death
four sons and three daughters survived her. There were also 19
surviving
grandchildren and 13 great grandchildren.

ASIDE
Bob
Mandler: I spoke
with two cousins around
80 years-of-age who remember Georgianna (they knew her as Grandma
Schwartz).
They told me the family was very poor in South Dakota and lived in a
three-room
house with one bedroom. Sometimes more than 12 of them would sleep in
three
beds in the one bedroom. One claimed that about the age of four she
remembers
sleeping in bed with Grandma Schwartz.

WILLIAM FERDINAN SCHWARTZ

Schwartz is a
common name and some say it means "black" in German.

The William
Schwartz, obituary published in the Madison
Weekly Sentinel(South Dakota)
said "William Ferdinan Schwartz was born at Belle Lake, Wis.,
on Nov
3, 1862." This date means that he and Georgianna were
married on his
21st Birthday.

She was seven
years older than he. She had four children, three living,
at the time of their marriage. Together they had five children. One of
those children, Abbie Rosetha Schwarz was my father's (Willard Francis
Mandler) mother. She was buried in the Woodlawn Cemetery in Sioux Falls
SD. My father and mother were buried at the Willow Creek Lutheran
Church
Cemetery, Dell Rapids SD (mailing address.) The church is located in
the
county about 3 '/z miles west and two miles north of Baltic SD. A 1910
censes report from South Dakota indicates William Schwartz's parents
were
born in Germany.

The Madison
newspaper said William Schwartz "was a carpenter by
trade and worked at this profession for many years, until the past year
when he accepted a position as grain buyer in the W. I. Thompson
elevator,
in which capacity he was still serving up to his death."

The paper also
claimed he "died in his home in Ramona Thursday
night about 11:30, March 20, 1913, of typhoid pneumonia, after a
lingering
illness of about a month."